From a newbie: Mule-UCS installation and configuration

Rodolfo Medina wrote:

> In my `Linux Mandrake 10.1 Community' system I recently installed
> Emacs CVS 21.3.50.
> I need to input both Simplified
> and Traditional Chinese
> together with Italian characters (with the accented vocals à, è, ì, etc.).
>
> [...]
>
> I started Emacs with `$ LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.UTF-8 emacs,
> then activated scim with C-space and
> tried to put chinese characters, but I always got squares


Kenichi Handa wrote:

> Squares?  I've thought that you are getting some garbage
> characters.  


I got garbage characters before putting in my .emacs the line:
(utf-translate-cjk-load-tables)
; after putting it I got squares.


Kenichi:

> Anyway,
>
> 中国
>
> the above line is correct "Chinese", and now I found why you
> see them in "squares".  By default, utf-translate-cjk-mode
> try to translate CJK character at first to Japanese
> charsets, and if it fails, to Chinese charsets.  You can
> change that order by switching to Chiense-GB or Chiense-BIG5
> language environment by using the command C-x RET l.


Thanks! Now it works: finally I can put chinese characters,
both simplified and traditional, and also Italian accented characters
(à, è, ì, etc) with Emacs and scim.
In my .emacs now I put the following lines:

	(utf-translate-cjk-load-tables)
	(set-language-environment 'chinese-big5)

. When I want to save a file containing the three kind of 
characters together, I do C-x C-s and the following message appears:

---------------------------------------------------------    
These default coding systems were tried to encode text
in the buffer `prova':
  chinese-big5
However, each of them encountered these problematic characters:
  chinese-big5: 国 à à 
The first problematic character is at point in the displayed buffer,
and C-u C-x = will give information about it.

Select one of the following safe coding systems, or edit the buffer:
  utf-8 utf-16 utf-16 utf-16 utf-16be utf-16le iso-2022-7bit
Or specify any other coding system
at the risk of losing the problematic characters.
---------------------------------------------------------
    
, and, in the echo area:

----------------------------------------------
Select coding system (default mule-utf-8):
----------------------------------------------

. Then I do RET and the file is properly saved.
Do you think it is okay?


Kenichi:

>  By the  way, have  you tried any  of Emacs'  one chinese
>  input methods?


Rodolfo:

> Yes indeed:  have a look  at: http://tug.org/interest.html
> in the  section `Multi-lingual typesetting  in scripts and
> languages  around  the   world',  subsection  `ChiTeX  for
> Chinese typesetting; Chinese directory on CTAN.
>  See also this recipe  for getting started with ChiTeX and
>  Emacs.'


Kenichi:

> ???  I don't understand why you mention ChiTeX in this
> context.
>
> What I meant by "Emacs' chinese input methods" means the
> ones that you can activate by C-\ or C-u C-\.  M-x
> list-input-methods lists several chinese input methods
> including pinyin.


I mentioned that report because in it those Emacs' input methods
are mentioned and used.
But now, one more problem.
I want to use gnus as my mail agent and mozilla as web browser.
Now, I did experiments and noticed that the two are apparently
'inconsistent'. I.e.:

1) I can properly send and receive mails 
   (containing chinese characters input via scim) using gnus;
2) I can properly input and read chinese characters in mozilla
   once I've selected View > Character Encoding > Unicode (UTF-8);

but:

1) if I compose and send to myself an e-mail via mozilla
   and collect it with gnus I can't read chinese characters;
2) vice versa, if I compose and send an e-mail via gnus 
   and try to read it within Internet with mozilla I can't read chinese 
   characters.
Any idea about this problem?
The same happens if I select *any* other chinese encoding system featured by 
mozilla.
Besides,
1) if I compose and send to myself an e-mail via mozilla
   and collect it with MicroSoft Outlook I can't read chinese characters;
2) if I compose and send an e-mail via gnus 
   and try to read it with MS Outlook I *can* properly read chinese characters.
So, the following interactions work fine:
gnus -> gnus; mozilla -> mozilla; gnus -> MS Outlook,
whereas the following do not properly work:
gnus -> mozilla; mozilla -> gnus; mozilla -> MS Outlook.
But I'm not interested in using MS Outlook, I just did a trial with it.
I'm interested in using gnus and mozilla or, in place of mozilla,
some linux web browser that `agrees' with gnus in displaying chinese characters
input via scim.
Is the inconsistence normal or there's a way
to work it out, and how?
Let's do the experiment: I'm composing the present message with gnus;
then I'll send to this list a second message composed with mozilla,
so that listers can see themselves what is displayed in what.
Here are chinese and italian accented characters:

中国
中國
àà
èè
aa


Thanks indeed,
Rodolfo